Posted to
Drama on October 7th, 2006 by Chad Everett
This is the epic tale of Alexander the Great, and it truly is epic, mostly in length. The movie clocks in at just under three hours, and it feels at least that long. Much of the length comes in because of the style of the telling. The tale is told by jumping back and forth through clips, presumably in order to hold some sort of mystique.
Unfortunately, it’s a style that is used more and more frequently these days, and it’s getting worse all the time. While linear storytelling appears to be going out of vogue, and directors want to maintain a sense of mystery as long as they can, they really need to learn to tell their stories first. That’s not the case here.
We follow Alexander at various points in his life, but we see him as a very young boy as his mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie) as she is attacked by Alexander’s father, Philip (Val Kilmer). Strangely, the young boy is in the bed as this is happening, and presumably it does a lot to shape his world view, though he is likely too young to make sense of it right then.
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Posted to
Drama on March 19th, 2006 by Chad Everett
The acting in this drama was superb, especially from Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn. I find that as I watch more and more of Tim Robbins, I find that he has his characters nailed (he won an Oscar for his performance here) but they just don’t vary a whole lot. They always have the same off-kilter look, and they each make you wonder what is going on underneath the surface, but there just isn’t a lot of real depth. While I’m not the world’s largest fan of Sean Penn, I was impressed by his role here (he won too, deservedly so).
The thug-like character played by Penn is matched by Bacon’s police persona, and wouldn’t you know it? They knew each other as kids. As it turns out, Tim Robbins rounds at the trio as one of the friends who was abducted and abused one fine day while they were in the middle of some mischief making.
Penn’s character, Jimmy Markum, finds that his daughter is missing, and then that she is dead. Meanwhile, Bacon’s detective, Sean Devine claims the job of trying to figure out who did it – or at least find a reasonable suspect – before Markum uses his contacts to bring someone to justice.
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